{"id":3782,"date":"2021-10-06T17:30:00","date_gmt":"2021-10-06T23:30:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/drbobewell.com\/?p=3782"},"modified":"2021-10-03T21:15:23","modified_gmt":"2021-10-04T03:15:23","slug":"measuring-the-wrong-thing-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/drbobewell.com\/?p=3782","title":{"rendered":"Measuring the Wrong Thing – 2"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

We started thinking yesterday<\/a> about how we sometimes measure the wrong thing. Today we continue: if what we measure becomes what we value, and if we’re measuring the wrong thing, we’ll value the wrong thing. It turns out that Facebook is apparently a textbook example. The Denver Post reported Sunday night about a 60-Minutes interview<\/a> with Frances Haugen, a data scientist who worked at Facebook and has filed complaints about the company. Here’s a snippet of the Post’s report:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A data scientist who was revealed Sunday as the Facebook whistleblower says that whenever there was a conflict between the public good and what benefited the company, the social media giant would choose its own interests…<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cFacebook, over and over again, has shown it chooses profit over safety,\u201d she said. Haugen, who will testify before Congress this week, said she hopes that by coming forward the government will put regulations in place to govern the company\u2019s activities. <\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

She said Facebook prematurely turned off safeguards designed to thwart misinformation and rabble-rousing after Joe Biden defeated Donald Trump last year, alleging that contributed to the deadly Jan. 6 invasion of the U.S. Capitol.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Post-election, the company dissolved a unit on civic integrity where she had been working, which Haugen said was the moment she realized \u201cI don\u2019t trust that they\u2019re willing to actually invest what needs to be invested to keep Facebook from being dangerous.\u201d…<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cNo one at Facebook is malevolent,\u201d Haugen said during the interview. \u201cBut the incentives are misaligned, right? Like, Facebook makes more money when you consume more content. people enjoy engaging with things that elicit an emotional reaction. And the more anger that they get exposed to, the more they interact and the more they consume.\u201c Denver Post, posted online October 3, 2021<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

“The incentives are misaligned.” <\/p>\n\n\n\n

If the church youth minister is rewarded only for bringing lots of kids into the building, he’ll spend less time investing in kids to help them grow and more time planning big events. If a pastor is pressured to keep “big givers” on board, he may be less inclined to preach sermons that challenge people to “take up their cross and follow Jesus.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We’ll continue this discussion tomorrow.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

After this many of his disciples turned back and no longer walked with him. (John 6.66, ESV)<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

For am I now seeking the approval of man, or of God? Or am I trying to please man? If I were still trying to please man, I would not be a servant of Christ. (Galatians 1.10, ESV) <\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

We started thinking yesterday about how we sometimes measure the wrong thing. Today we continue: if what we measure becomes what we value, and if we’re measuring the wrong thing, we’ll value the wrong thing. It turns out that Facebook is apparently a textbook example. The Denver Post reported Sunday night about a 60-Minutes interview … Continue reading Measuring the Wrong Thing – 2<\/span> →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3782","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p8X9bo-Z0","jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/drbobewell.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3782","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/drbobewell.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/drbobewell.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/drbobewell.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/drbobewell.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3782"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/drbobewell.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3782\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3783,"href":"https:\/\/drbobewell.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3782\/revisions\/3783"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/drbobewell.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3782"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/drbobewell.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3782"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/drbobewell.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3782"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}